MyPlates ‘upset’ after ad watchdog receives more than 350 complaints against latest campaign

The volume and ferocity of complaints made against TV adverts for personalised number plate firm MyPlates “rocked our socks off”, its chief executive has said, as he admitted he will think twice over the content of future campaigns.

Head revealed he has already been informed by the ASB that the complaints have been dismissed, adding: “We haven’t done anything wrong or breached any code of conduct.”

The ads which generated complaints in the firm’s “man proof your car” campaign showed one man breaking wind and another picking his nose. Three new ads, again the work of Custom Creative, will begin this weekend.

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Head insisted he did not set out to offend and claimed some of those lodging complaints have been abusive.

“The ferocity of the complaints has been quite upsetting. They are abusive, and the young ladies handling the complaints for me have been offended. That has rocked our socks off,” he said.

“I don’t intend to offend and the ads are not designed to get complaints and get people upset. They are designed to be funny.”

Head acknowledged that while it will make him re-evaluate future material, people who do complain must realise they cannot simply demand something that they find offensive be removed.

“It has to make you stop and think. Any company that gets feedback and arrogantly ignores it is in trouble, so we are are not going to do that and dismiss the complaints,” he said

“Complain by all means because it does have an impact and it has impacted my thinking about how we move forward. But complainants need to be aware that their opinion is not a greater opinion than another person who might find the ads amusing.

“I don’t think people are too sensitive, that’s not for me to judge, but it is incredibly difficult to do anything in society in a public forum that does not get a complaint. That is something we have to understand as marketers and work out a way of dealing with that. If everything was taken off air that we got a complaint about then there would be a lot of white noise out there.”

He added that as MyPlates is dealing with a government product, the public expect a higher moral standard. “We seem to trip people up easier,” he said.

Head rejected suggestions the MyPlates brand would be damaged, arguing that those who are offended by the ads are not its target audience.

“The people who are complaining from a personality perspective don’t buy our plates. Our audience is humorous, out there, extroverted and brave and these people are not in that personality group,” he said.

It is not the first time Head has courted controversy, with MyPlates ads last year which showed a man in his back yard “showing a bit of bum crack” receiving complaints.

“It seems that everything I do people complain,” he said. “We have three new ads starting at the weekend and it will be interesting to see what happens.”

The ASB declined to confirm the ads have been cleared when approached for comment by Mumbrella.

I’m not really a fan of the ads. My husband would never do that and plus I’m sure women do it too. I would not get a personalized number plate based on that ad. I think it needs to be a bit more subtle and sophisticated.

From the first time I saw your rather stupid adds, I deemed them to be, insulting,
demeaning to men, disgusting, inappropriate, stupid in the extreme, designed by some cretin with absolutely no advertising acumen and if you had put women in a similar situation albeit reversed whoever the feral was who put this crap to television would have had his balls handed to him in a barrage of feminist hatred. Sack the feral who designed these adds. Also the Advertising council should re think their standards for advertising. Advertising has and will to a large extent turn most viewers away from free to air television. The abuse of advertising to gain the almighty Dollar is pushing more and more people towards the internet and the P.V.R’s. Thank common sense that people have complained about these adds.

I think the ad is quite repulsive. Can only describe it as “toilet humour” and do we really need to lower ourselves to that level. Please lets lift our game, if not for our own sake, then for the sake of our children. Found it hard to watch!

I just see this as an advert proving how the NSW Government and RMS are ripping off the dumbos who buy personalised plates. A personal plate ensures that your friends know where you are or up to. No privacy. Ha ha.

I have watched the ads and found nothing wrong. Rather funny (because its true).
What the heck is going on with someone being who they are, i.e. Male????????
Anyone got a problem with that?! Someone probably will.
I have been at MANY an intersection as a professional driver and witnessed dozens upon dozens of women miss lights due to doing their hair/ makeup or on their phone, mainly on their phone. Ladies get the f off your phones. Yes, us truck drivers see you. Don’t think no-one notices… I do.
The cops are even keener noticers.
Get the f off your phones. You put me at risk and I have a very lovely loving family to consider and go home to.
I don’t see mine often but when I do I would like to be in one piece.
Thank you.
Please observe the rules of the road…
Yours Truly,
An Observant Road User

“Not intended to be offensive: designed to be funny” huh? Pity you forgot the word discrimination in your considerations Mr. . . And the whole experience is all the more compouned by the fact that the content you are displaying so closely mirrors the reality of human behaviours – Which is NOT what decent people permit to enter their homes. The ad’s are both indecent and divisive – Get them off!

Why are blokes always fair game when it comes to taking the micky,I am sure there are a lot of women out there that I would not allow sit in my car,How about a woman proof number plate?Have we not heard of discrimination.

There’s 350 people out there that need to lighten up and get a sense of humour! Anyway, 350 out of the total number who would have viewed the add would be a small percentage. Perhaps the govt could fund free tissues for these sooky souls!

The ads may have been intended to be funny, but they contain scenes with men behaving in an offensive manner, this tends to marginalise the humour.

Recorded music played via speakers in hotel lobbies etc, is nearly always banal and low key. This music is calculated to offend the least number of people, it is not designed to appeal to the majority. It does , of course, appeal to a minority.

Perhaps there are now more men who are prepared to protest at the increasing trend towards labelling all, or even most men, as filthy undisciplined little boys.

women fart, women pick their noses, it is just that we live in a society that prefers to pretend that they don’t.

I saw the ad with booger before it got pixelated and I gagged when the guy smeared it on the door. I was so relieved it got pixelated. What knuckle-head would think it’s funny to smear a booger on the door, most men would be smart enough to smear it under the seat or on the carpet, surely!!! The only funny thing about the ad was that it had to be pixelated because people complained and rightly so. I hope Daryl Head from MyPlates gets our (the taxpayers) money back from the advertising agency for these ads – I can’t believe he thought that the target audience – women – would find them funny. My 13 year old son thinks the ads are hilarious….

I find these ads to be nothing more than gratuitous man bashing. Highly offensive and very sexist. I can’t for the life of me understand how the RMS – which has as its minister Duncan Gay, an old-style conservative National Party man – ever allowed these ads to go to air.

As others have said, it’s the cheap and crass execution more than the ideas themselves (which are pretty base to begin with) that are the issue here.

Needing to show a close-up of snot on the end of a finger to get laughs really is evidence that you’re not doing it right.

Apart from that, these are just another instalment in the ‘all men are idiots’ genre… of which there are many. Tiresome in the extreme. Although any woman likely to be attracted to these hideous plates would probably enjoy this particular brand of advertising.

I remember the second ad above caught my attention because I thought the product would be popular with ladies in their twenties, but was in some way was a little unfair to men. I don’t find anything wrong with the ads, only the first. That is beyond disgusting. I know in my family, we would purposely change the channel if we saw the ad. I think they could have gone about marketing the product a little better, but what the hey? If they’ve got free publicity, then kudos to them.

It’ll be a good way to identify stupid females with money to waste. If they think these hideous plates will stop their “bloke” using their car as a rental… WRONG. IF their guy is a massive sissy and has problems with the plates… all it takes is a screwdriver to remove the plates… or scratch them to the point of replacement. And since the ad is generalizing… it’s the men that will have the screwdriver. 🙂